Press Release:
DuraSpace
[September 27, 2012]

Dell and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign create preservation archive with open source Fedora repository software

ROUND ROCK, Texas, Sept. 27, 2012 Working with Dell, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has created a new digital archive for its university system that simplifies how it manages digital assets, including rare books and faculty intellectual property output such as research documents, papers and lectures — content typically produced in multiple digital formats. The new archive reduces storage costs and streamlines the management, retention and protection of scholarly works through a solution based on the Dell DX Object Storage Platform and DuraSpace Open Source Fedora Commons Repository Software. Critical for the university was the ability to meet today's needs and to scale efficiently over time as digital content evolves and grows.

Explosive data growth and large data sets make it more difficult for libraries, museums and government organizations to efficiently preserve and protect documents, multimedia content and digital assets for future generations. As one of the largest public university libraries in the world, the Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign manages the intellectual property and digital content created by faculty, administrators and students -- from one-of-a-kind, fragile books that can create 600 to 800 image objects once digitized, to retiring professors' collections of work over a 20- to 25-year tenure.

After considering its digital archive and retention goals, the University of Illinois customized a version of Fedora Repository Software and combined it with the Dell DX Object Storage Platform. The platform automatically replicates an archive master and a working master of each file to simplify data backup, storing one copy on the University's main library cluster and a second copy in its engineering library. In the future, a third copy will be archived in the cloud to further simplify data access and sharing across the University system. The Dell DX Platform also produces metadata to manage the archive, identifying files that need to be transitioned from older to newer digital formats for future generations. And the DX Object Storage Platform's plug and play framework lets archivists add additional retention capacity to the digital archive as it is needed, simply and efficiently.

Quotes

John Mullen, Vice President, Education and State & Local Government, Dell

"With the transition from stacks and the Dewey Decimal system to bytes, clusters and metadata, academic libraries need a digital archiving strategy that addresses their immediate and future needs. The University of Illinois' innovative and open approach to this challenge is a practical model for any university."

Thomas Habing, Research Programmer, Research and Development, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign Library

"This opportunity provides us with extra resources to further the development of the Library's digital preservation archive. It also allows us to continue to utilize Open Source Fedora Commons Repository Software while at the same time employing a commercially-supported object storage platform with many digital preservation features, such as replication and validation, which we will not need to implement ourselves. Plus, we can share all of our development efforts back to the open source community which helps everyone, including Dell."

Michele Kimpton, CEO of DuraSpace

"The Open Source Fedora repository platform is used by more than 400 institutions around the globe. We believe commercial implementations, such as Dell, provide our users with the best of both worlds -- hardware and services from a large-scale commercial vendor integrated with open source software, Fedora Repository. The total package provides users with greater transparency and durability in the long run."

About Dell

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services that give them the power to do more. For more information, visit www.dell.com.

About University of Illinois

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has long been ranked among the nation's most distinguished teaching and research institutions. Its diverse, world-class programs reflect the mission of a land-grant university. The largest public university in Illinois, the Urbana campus was chartered by the state in 1867 as the Illinois Industrial University and opened its doors to students in 1868. Its library is ranked highly nationally and globally, and its collections and services are used heavily by students, faculty, and scholars. For more information, please visit www.library.illinois.edu.

About DuraSpace

DuraSpace is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. DuraSpace software and services are used worldwide as solutions for open access, institutional repositories, digital libraries, digital archives, data curation, virtual research environments and more. The organization's open-source technology portfolio includes DSpace open access repository application and the Fedora open repository platform. DuraSpace is the home of DuraCloud, a cloud-based software service that leverages existing cloud infrastructure to enable durability and access to digital content. For more information, visit www.duraspace.org.

Summary:

Working with Dell, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has created a new digital archive for its university system that simplifies how it manages digital assets, including rare books and faculty intellectual property output such as research documents, papers and lectures — content typically produced in multiple digital formats. The new archive reduces storage costs and streamlines the management, retention and protection of scholarly works through a solution based on the Dell DX Object Storage Platform and DuraSpace Open Source Fedora Commons Repository Software. Critical for the university was the ability to meet today’s needs and to scale efficiently over time as digital content evolves and grows.